I am the Grim Reaper of fish! extremely long rant!

[braindead]

I've killed a lot of beautiful aquatic creatures in my life. Too many to mention. But it seems lately that I've been on a serial spree of murder. Try as I might, I just can't seem to keep fish in my new tank.

Bear with me for the long, boring details...

I wanted a discus tank. And I thought I was good enough to pull it off. I was wrong.

I bought a 30 tall Hex tank from a friend, who claimed the tank was jinxed. I didn't believe him. I should have listened. he tried for 3 years to get fish to live in the tank with no luck. He wasn't a fish person, so I blamed it on him being a novice. I got cocky and told him I'd have a healthy tank in 6 weeks.

Bought a Penguin 200 filter, a nice 250 watt Eheim heater, a Marineland LED hood, and some rock. I used a biowheel from my established African Cichlid tank (which has a pair of Penguin 350's, so I could spare one biowheel).

Failure 1: Using driftwood from my parents house in Texas, I made a sculpture and placed it in the center of the tank. It looked great, until the water turned brown. After several water changes I figured I was ready for fish, and loaded up 50 neon tetras. Overnight I lost half. In the following week, I lost another 20. Ouch!

Assuming that my sculpture was somehow toxic, I yanked it and went with silk plants instead. two 95% water changes and a few weeks later I bought two dozen comet feeder goldfish to make sure the tank was safe. The golfdish were happy and lived there in harmony with the 5 neons I had left for about 3 weeks. I could no longer stand the thought of tetras in the same tank with goldfish, so I moved the goldfish (all 24 of them) to a 5 gallon hex tank. A bit crowded, but they're all still doing well today!

So since my comet goldfish test went OK, I figured I was allright to stock some better fish in the 30 hex. I bought 4 tiny plecos, 4 gold gouramis, another 50 neons, and 2 hermit crabs. I've kept this number of fish in a 20 tall before, so I know overstocking isn't an issue.

Within a week, 3 of the plecos were dead, all 4 gouramis were dead, and all but about 20 of the neons. Turns out one of the crabs died inside the filter and I had forgotten that dead crustaceans poison the water. Massive fail again. More dead fish.

This time, I decided to take the LFS up on their fish guarantee, and took 25 of the neons back. I don't like to do this because I figure it's my fault for killing the little guys - the fish store shouldn't have to pay for my stupidity. Still, I needed some more livestock in the tank, so 2 weeks later I asked them to replace my neons with 25 more, which they gladly did - and they promptly died.

So now, I've got 1 pleco, about 5 neons, and an old kribensis that's tougher than nails in the tank. Everybody's getting along well. And since my hex tank is already a "mutt tank" with a mish mash of all kinds of fish, I decided to buy some angels because I've never kept them before.

8 angels (at $5 a piece) all dead within 7 days.

I do plenty of water changes, and frequently test. No ammonia. No nitrite. Very little nitrate. PH is good. Temperature stays around 76-78.

I am wondering if maybe the current is too strong? I've got the Penguin 200 and a bubble wand going in there. I bought the bubble rock because I originally wanted to keep discus, and their higher water temps need a bit more oxygenation from what I am told.

I'm scratching my head. I just don't get it. I wanted a nice, elegant discus tank. Now I can't seem to get anything at all to live in there except for comet goldfish! I'm about to give up the ghost and just buy a couple of cute black moors and an elephant-man oranda or two.

My africans have me spoiled. I thought I was "good" at this fish thing. Now I realize I've got so much to learn...

After that long rant, does anyone have any suggestions? I really do think this tank is cursed.

[davidtcb1]

Have you tested your tap water on its own?

It doesn't sound like a current issue to me. I would say it's oxygenation, but you have surface agitation and bubbler. I have found most plecos to be difficult to keep alive without natural driftwood. There's the possibility that something harmful released from the wood from your parents' but I'd think given all the water changes you've done since removing it, that wouldn't be the issue at this point. That coloration will go away eventually mind you, once the tannins in the wood are all released.

Gouramis can sometimes be aggressive toward one another, but you think you'd have at least one left if that were the case here. Angels can be difficult too, but shouldn't have died that quickly.

I'd start with seeing if I could get some parameters of my tap water. That's a lot of fish to lose with an established/seeded filter, etc.

[bnoel210]

Your Nitrates should not be at 0 should be between .5-.20 this leads me to think your tank wasn't cycled. Also due you use a dechlorinator like PRIME when you do your water changes?

[bnoel210]

yup i did. thank you for correcting me......sorry about that. its the old age and just maybe the pain pills kicking in

[mruble]

Has the tank been resealed?

[braindead]

No reseals in the tank. The only thing I can think of is perhaps the toxins from the original wood sculpture have leeched their way into the rock or biowheel. I really don't want to tear down the entire tank and replace the rock on such a long shot.

I am treating the water prior to the changes. A healthy dose of Stress Coat which I've used for decades in other tanks. Along the way I also treated with Prime a time or two with no noticeable change.

Any thoughts on the current issue? Is current ever something to induce stress? Most of the fish I've put in (with the exception of the grouramis) have been very small. I wondered if maybe the water was flowing too quickly for them. I am definitely going to take the bubbler out for now to see if that helps.

I'm using the same water that I use in my 55 Malawi Cichlid tank (Spring Hill tap water), so I'm not too concerned about that.

Maybe neons and angels are just too delicate. That Krib who I nursed back to health in another tank is loving life in there, so maybe I just need something in there a bit more hearty.

[bnoel210]

Well you should be using Prime or a dechlor with every water change. Instead of adding a huge amount of fish at a time try adding just 5-6 fish that you want and go from there. If they make it a week or two add a few more and so on.

[mruble]

I am leaning towards some type of toxin also - that is why I asked if the tank had been resealed. Is it possible that the rock and driftwood had been sprayed with something like Roundup?

[allierw]

Did you ever test your water a few hours after adding the fish? Neons are pretty sensitive. Have you ever had Petsmart or Petco or a LFS test your water? (i.e. like a 2nd opinion). I would try what bnoel210 suggested and add just a few at a time. Prime is much better than stress coat, too, and cheaper. I would think you would have more nitrates with dying fish and the bioload.

[bunnie1978]

I didn't see anything about you sterilizing the tank before using it... if there is some kind of virulant bacteria/parasite that had infected the tank previously (even with drying out) theres the possibility of it still being present...

Bleach, my friend... bleach.

Just my thoughts, as I assume you have appropriate gravel/filter media and all that. Of course, if your water is very hard, you might have problems keeping soft water fish anyways. Neons and Angels are soft water fish - and some report great success with even very hard water, while others just can't seem to keep fish alive...

Oh, and don't add HUGE gobs of fish all at once. A 30g tank isn't a high enough volume of water for that, IMO. Even with an established biowheel.